INT - WINDGRACE MANOR; day
Dorian home from his morning out, having ridden Irene at the sober pace the fog and spores commanded. His natural resistance to toxins and disease had proven useful in recent months. His preternatural long life had given him a long lead time before the weather and cabin fever of knowing he couldn't leave if he wanted to started to make him restless. In recent days he'd been looking for connections who were still capable of getting goods onto the island. He'd tried flying up through the fog but got woefully disoriented before even barely even losing sight of Callisto, which made no sense. In VERY recent days he'd been shadowing his sister several times a day to check in on her. His celebrations of Niles-free life had been attended alone and far from the house. He'd found himself dancing with strangers for a few evenings and buying rounds of whatever the bars had left to sell that could knock a normal man down.
Though Drystan had been in one of his reclusive modes, Dorian lit up a cigarette and resolved to knock on the door of his elder brother's suite. Exhaling his plume of smoke ceilingward, he'd rapataptap the rhythm of shave and a haircut, informing his sibling likely then who was there. He ashed into the precariously placed ashtray he'd leaned onto the bannister before knocking. He willed the lump in his throat to decide what it was going to do. Become news or get swallowed like unacknowledged feelings.
Drystan sat on the corner of the darkened room, facing the area that was set up with canvas an paints at the ready. Big wide brushes swathed the majority of the canvas in a dark black blue shade while several other smaller brushes, thinner, bathed in red, made swirls extending out from the center, leading together to create what looked like a river that wound it way around the dark shadows of the rest of the canvases. The magical candle in the jar, ws his light, and whatever came through darkened windows. He leaned back and rest his head on the back of the chaise, humming a tune to himself as he rocked forward and back slowly. He heard the familiar knock and slowly lifted his legs to use his heel to close the trunk in front of him, dragged down to his chamber from the attic space. He crosses one leg over the other to put their weight on the lid, and opened the door to his brother, silently.
Dorian hadn't come knocking lightly, and that'd be in his stubbly face when the door was first opened to him. He was concerned and the way his brows drew down over grey eyes showed that. Before entering, he'd stub out what little was left of his smoke without upending the ashtray, and then take just a few bare steps inside. "'Lo Drystan. You uh..." It was clear from the way he looked at his brother that he wanted to ask him how he was doing, at least he hoped so because that was where his sentence stopped. One brow crawled up his forehead like the topmost curve of a question mark. He'd wait for an answer to the unasked question before speaking any further. He didn't even look around his elder's room just studied his brother's face.
Drystan drew his eyes over at the silhouette of his brother and gave hm a soft smile. "Am I what, Dorian?" He asked, the same soft smile stuck to his face. But his eyes were far away, though looking right at him. Slowly all three of his eyes blinked and he cocked his head a bit and lifted his chin, "Why don't you come in? I was just...working on a little something.." He waved a hand and the paintbrushes all clattered to the table or the floor. "You aren't interrupting. I swear it." Again a pull on his cheeks, a smile or grin, it played out in the flickers of the candle light.
Dorian walked in without looking like he was trying to hide in plain sight, shoulders straightening a bit when invited in. He was chuckling as he did, lowly and shaking his head, "I was going to ask if you were quite well, but you seem like you are... in good spirits." He'd lift a hand in vague gesture to the paintbrushes Drystan had left off, and continue that hand's motion to scruffle his curling hair while he went on, "I am sorry that I interrupted you while you were working. I tried flying past the fog again the past few days, it's bloody impossible. But if someone is getting off island, I think I am ready to search the black and grey markets. We don't have much vodka left and Di.... Keiko's nephew's still can only output so much, this island being what it is." He trailed off again up and into his brother's face. The vodka was their sister's lifeblood. The one that wasn't actual blood, nor aether. Anyone trying to distill spirits to make up for the islands lack was running into the same issue, something had to be broken down to make the booze, and food was also harder and harder won these days.
Drystan frowned a little and waved his hand again once his younger brother had finally stepped into the light of the candle and into his lazy line of sight. "Yes, quite well, quite well, save for the lack of restful sleep, and the effect the fog is having on all of us. I'm shocked you managed flight at all, it's not normal fog - Pandora could tell, she's attune to weather you know? Even her radiance only breaks the magic for a moment. Have you watched her walk, brother? Your great Niece, or rather just niece i suppose if one is bothered by the age .." He trailed off in thought and stared ahead, again somewhat through Dorian, before he blinked and looked up at his face, smile snapping back to place. "Oh heaven's forbid she not have vodka. Her withdrawals would last a day or more at best, its the psychological addiction...hmm...tsk." He reached up and pinched his bottom lip, curling it and uncurling it. "Can't the greensingers help with potato production?" He closed his eyes and paused, still for a moment and seemed to wince and lean away from his left side. Almost as if someone was screaming into that ear. He let out a jagged breath and eased back after a moment and opened his eyes. He folded himself as he reached for his silver cigarette case and opened it, popping one of them out. All of his hand rolls now had swipes of pixie dust in them, coating the paper, he licked it off his fingers after he got it lit thanks to a series of words under his breath to bring a small flame to his hand. He waved it away and inhaled deeply. "So, what am I to do to help this sad horrible situation?"
Dorian listened to his brother's answer about his wellbeing and he gave a small one-sided smile. They were, especially right now--none of them, great sleepers. Who could blame them? Living so long as they did days could easily run together if one wasn't careful. When his brother waxed on about Pandora, that little smile ventured up to the other side of his mouth for a moment and on that front, he'd offer, "I have only seen her walking by... and I can only say that I was glad that I did." One eye closed in a wink that was obscenely unsubtle. Dorian had no clue with regard to potato production, nor who could help, but it was somewhat evident to him that his sister hadn't told their brother what was going on with her and that put hm in an awkward position. His brother was so magical that it was a matter of course, and more worldly than either twin so he was pretty sure he was making a good choice when he began beating around a bush a bit more, "Our sister is... has been doing poorly." He'd reach one hand to tap his temple to explain the kind of poorly it was, and conclude, "I just don't want her to lose any comforts when she is busy beating herself to bits."
Drystan rolled his eyes lightly at the wink he was given. "Thats my granddaughter you're winking about." As if that mattered in this family. He sighed and shook his head, taking a deep drag, and ashing on the trunk in front of him. He watched Dorian's pantomime and his right eye twitched a couple of times. The last interaction he'd had with her, was when she regained her sight. and time time spent after at the Yog pool, which wasn't something he was about to get into with Dorian. "She seemed, quite well last I saw, what happened now, she lose a button on something made ONLY in Spain in the 1700's?" He took another long drag from his smoke, the crackling pixie dust giving of the smallest of light electric blue sparkle as it burned,
Dorian: "Pfffft," was the first reply, with regard to Pandora. Her blood proximity was not an offputting thing in this house, it was just that only one woman lived in his heart, truly. "She's a good looking girl, you should be proud. Proud she got her looks from the other side." Dorian ribbed his brother right back and when Drystan continued to make light with regard to Di he winced. Visibly. He'd answer on that front, "Sort of. More like..."
He'd pace a few steps toward the door and back without speaking and finally spit out, "Paris." When he did he'd stopped his little trek to and fro and look meaningfully at Drystan again. At least the younger brother wasn't thinking at him this time, but managing actual words.
Dinah 's door opened almost fortuitously after her twin had mentioned the word 'paris', but gratefully enough that she hadn't heard it. The crying had stopped, and thanks to her prodigious healing she hadn't the red rings or soreness that would betray it had ever happened at all. she'd even managed to dress today, though there wasn't any of her usual makeup finishing her look. she padded towards the top of the stairs but paused at the open door to the elder's bedroom. She wasn't attempting to sneak, but approached the door and reached for it with her fingertips, peeking in to see if her brother was sleeping and seeing neither from where she stood.
"Drystan?" she near-whispered, not wanting to startle him if he were working "your door is open. did you want me to close it?"
Drystan let the smoke curl up out of his mouth and out his nose before exhaling. "Her grandmother was a sight to behold." He smiled softly, using his thumb to absently turn the Aetherite ring he wore back and forth. He had taken another deep drag and was waiting for Dorian to say something, but not what he did say. "Paris?" He sat up more, pulling his feet off the trunk to plant them on the floor. Smoke plumed from him like a dragon as his words came from him. "What do you mean Paris? Where is she? Who was the---" He had been about to stand up and go hunting for her, to bolt into some kind of action. But when he answered his own question that he hadn't even fully asked, he plopped back down on the chaise. "Oh." The smoke spilled out of him as he leaned his head back onto the cushion of the chaise. "I see." Those two words meant far more. The wet paint on the canvases behind Dorian was a glaring indication that he had seen something, but nothing that gave him any context. Nothing he Saw could be reliable, especially in the state he was in. OH - but there was his dearest sister now, whispering into the darkness as he sat there staring off into nothing. She wouldn't have heard the conversation, other then maybe the last few things he'd said. But he had no words for her. Not yet. the smoke between his fingers sparkled and spat as it burned.
Dorian watched the understanding roll over Drystan and once it did he'd reach out a hand then flip his fingers back and forth by way asking for a toke of whatever that sparkly thing was. "Yes. See..." He leapt where he stood upon hearing Dinah's voice, having not clocked her creeping from her room. Even though he was tattling he told himself that he'd done the right thing, and when his feet were firmly planted again he'd call to her, inviting her, "Come in Di. I was just interrupting him from his work. Let's see your face." All the while he was looking at his brother meaningfully. When he finished talking he turned toward the doorway in anticipation of her entry. His voice had taken on a saccharine note when he called to her that likely told her that something was up with him.
Dinah had barely heard the 'I see' from her elder brother and with her fingers still curled around the door, she peeked around it. "Drystan?" a little louder but still not calling out, until she noticed Dorian already in there but still unable to see the head of the house.
"oh...i'm sorry Dorian, I didn't realize." she murmured. Still hesitating by the door in case this was something she'd not been supposed to intrude upon. "...should I...close this?" she paused when Dorian had called her in, and a faint frown touched her face at the tone of his voice. She did come in though, closing the doors behind her with a neat click, and she approached her twin to reach for his arm, steps a little unsteady, the wavering ghost of a smile flickering the corners of her lips at the sight of her brothers before it fell to the trunk and the smile dissipated again
"i didnt mean to intrude."
Drystan lifted the smoke but not to hand it to Dorian, but to take a drag off it himself, and if Dorian wanted one, he lifted the silver case with his mind, and dangled it before him. He kept his eyes on that space between space, so that he was focused in some other reality perhaps. He waved the hand that held the hand roll and ashed it on the trunk again, speaking out loud but not to either of them in particular. "I was just working something out that came to me in my sleep.." The big black and blue bush raised itself and began is repeated motions on the background of the canvases that were all pushed together to make one larger scene. "I just can't seem to ...put it all together..." The smaller red coated brushes lifted and plunged one by one like birds pecking at the ink well before slapping against the canvas, following the rivulets that seemed to pour out of the pool of red in the middle. "It's not really anything at all." He pursed his lips and then looked directly at Dinah. He could not telepathically speak to her, but he could give her what he could, which was the wash of all the emotions he felt right at that moment. All of them focused right at her. The shock, the sorrow, the pain, the anger, the questioning, the hurt....most of all, the hurt. When he did speak it was but a low gravelled whisper. "Why didn't you come to me?"
Dorian looked into his sister's seeing-again eyes as she neared and he hooked his arm in hers so she was locked beside him like he might start dancing with her in one of the old dances from the times when they went to balls and lined up in the fussy fine attire of the gilded times. He'd explain quietly in case she had any doubt, "I told him, Di. Only just." He was still looking at her while he continued talking, speaking to their brother, "It was not her fault. It was a demon took possession of her."
He was in a very awkward position just now because it was clear from Drystan's response that he was also not joyous about it. He was going to explain further how without a body there couldn't be any crime, but it didn't seem the moment. What was important was that all of them know what was going on so they could present the united front that would keep them all alive and prosperous.
Dinah turned to look towards the canvas as the brushes started moving, the red river in it making her already pale skin ashen and she swallowed the lump in her throat. And then Drystan looked at her and she felt, and she almost visibly recoiled, taking a half-step back, golden eyes darting between him and Dorian as the penny dropped as to what had been discussed before she had come out of her room. For a moment she looked half ready to flee.
"...Dorian, you said.." her voice croaked out and her hand withdrew from his arm sharply, her fingernails embedding themselves into her palms. Her eyes beaded with tears and overspilled in a fraction of a moment.
"....i...didn't...i didnt come to dorian e-either. he found me." she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks and dripping from her chin. "I was g-going to tell when.. when I could say the words without breaking" she whimpered. She flinched when Dorian mentioned the demon and one hand reached up to press across her face, fingers trembling and a little reddened at the tips from the crescent-shaped injuries her nails had inflicted on herself.
"I cant...I c-cant..." she wilted in on herself, staring at the base of the trunk. "i-its not my fault...i d-didnt... i wouldnt..." and once more she crumpled, legs folding her to the floor in a shuddering thump.
Drystan mentally opened the window, and his nearly dead smoke flung itself out before the window slammed shut and locked again. The brushes worked furiously as more and more came to him, highlights on stone, browns in the red for the dirt. a new brush came to play and dove into a jar of glowing green goop - it wasn't paint, but Drystan didn't always follow the rules of what one was supposed to paint with. it flew at the canvas and nearly pierced it, leaving a gleaming green splotch, two smaller drips became eyes. "He said it was like Paris. I begged you, Warned you...Fuck. I warned him, for all that was worth." He threw his hands up and let them flop into his lap. He sighed as he spoke about how it wasn't her fault, and fell into a ball on the floor. "Why...would you let him touch that cursed thing? Why would YOU have it out anyhow? Help me understand why he's gone Dinah, please." that tie of emotions coiled around her as it did him, but she would likely feel that thin line of absolute madness that hugged to the edges of him, when she really looked at him, she would see it as clear as day, the oily sheen of ichor like shadow that surrounded him, swirled and sunk in and out of him as his heart beat. Not so much an aura, but a lack of one. He looked at Dorian, and shook his head. "You don't really care, only to move on. to cover her tracks. How many toasts have you made to a dead friend of ours?" those wicked tendrils of emotions would whip and smack at Dorian, so he'd feel and inkling of what he and his sister felt. He would climb invisible into his brain and fuel him with hurt, with ache, with remorse. It wouldnt last long, because he had no reason to torture either of them, and even the tethers around Dinah would soon break off and recede back to himself.
Dorian had pocketed his pristine smoke that his brother had floated to him and put it away for later, he'd get his buzz on later. It was in the vest pocket that had nothing in it. He didn't let Di go by herself, particularly when she made it clear she was bound for the floor, but he also did not grab her up to pull her to himself. Instead he just joined her on the floor and told her silently, as he knelt on the spot beside her, reaching into his vest pocket for his embroidered handkerchief which he'd offer his sobbing sister, <I am sorry. He needs to know. You have that head in your room.>
From there he'd refrain from embracing his sister mostly because of the betrayal he'd just enacted, and look toward their brother who was lashing out at him too. He'd let his temper get the best of him and retort, "Does it matter what I think so long as one of us is considering practicalities? Woe to us that that person is me." He grit his teeth and snarled Drystan's way once he'd done speaking, reacting to the empathic unpleasantness he'd been subject to.
Dinah sobbed against her knees, curling forward into a fetal ball against the floor. She could barely catch her breath, shoulders jerking. She didn't even seem to notice that dorian had joined her on the ground.
"i-it wasnt...he wasnt.." she choked out and the mention of paris only compounded her already overwhelming despair. Butterflies and roses.. "i-it wasnt on purpose!" there was an almost pleading tone in her voice but when he asked about the pendant she pressed her head tighter into the ball.
"...i... i was... I was trying to use it. it slowed my healing before" she whispered, her voice strengthless and hollow. "i.. i wanted to see if i could use it s-so... i could have a baby." Another dream shattered and tainted.
"h-he visited and... he o-offered to help. i hadnt expected it last time b-but I was better prepared this time and there were two of us" she murmured "b-but it was a-aggressive. it attacked us.. it didn't...it didnt DO that last time and when it touched me, when it bit me, it....it made me... i didnt want to hurt him, i tried to stop, i tried to heal him..."
her arms curled around her head, as if trying to protect herself from the emotional lashing she was taking. Even as his wroth moved on to her twin, it didn't lessen her hurt. she had enough pain of her own to hurt herself with. "i'm sorry...im s-sorry, i tried, I tried to save him, I tried...im sorry, im sorry...i-its my fault, it's my fault...i'm s-sorry..."
Drystan unceremoniously kicked open the trunk when Dorian went on his saviour complex. It opened to reveal a very alive, but very much only a naked torso of Kiernan. His eyes were open, his tattoo's or what was left of them swirled in flame on his skin, but there was no expression on his face, just a soft smile. Drystan stood and pointed. "You don't think I have the wherewithal to know how to cover a crime? Fuck you and your goddamned horse. You have no IDEA how many i've covered, hidden, spied away, made disappear into nothing. Niles understood what I was. I wasn't made to be shamed of it, nor of having gotten away with it for this long. So don't you chide me brother mine, you are her keeper, not mine." He shouted then slammed the trunk closed again. "Leave. Both of you. Dinah, you were a fool to even think about using a DEMON to spawn a child. You look down at me for the dealings I make with whom I do, and here you are, killing off the keeper of the SHARD of YOG-SOTHOTH? You didn't mean it, and you tried to keep him alive - I believe you. I do not hate you. I do not hate you Dinah but I hate what you did. Now, Out. Both of you. Leave me to my visions, where I know far less and it can be an untruth." He shooed at the both of them, his mind picking up as manhy brushes as it could manage, working them into a fury on the canvas, as slowely the caves beneath the house started to appear. He refused to look at either of them, and he would speak no more to their direction, only lift his hand and cover his mouth with his hand while he held back a swelling of emotions that threatened to spill and overwash everyone if they didn't leave now.
Dorian was really only hearing the story more fully now, and listening to it, and how pained she was to tell it, he winced again. When Drystan went on his tear at him and revealed he was keeping a... partial person alive and prisoner?, Dorian looked appropriately perplexed. And surprised. Wide grey eyes flew from the torso to his brother and narrowed upon his face over being dismissed. He decided against trying to say anything clever and with a grunt moved to help Dinah to her feet. He wasn't going to have this fight right now. He was not going to fight anyone over Roesler who wasn't the skinny German Sidhe. Next time, he was talked to like that, maybe he'd swing at him. His fury bubbling over why either of them was acting this way over Niles tipped him past caution. "I didn't come to tell you so you could make her feel worse, how could you with that--" he gestured to the Kiernan part and went on, putting himself between the two of them as he continued mouthing off, "whoever the bloody fuck that is. It isn't yours to punish her."
He'd be rather insistent in getting Di to her feet so that he could square off between the two of them.
Dinah sniffled, wrapping her arms around her face under the onslaught of her brother's words. She couldn't lift her voice again to tell him that she'd not planned to use the demon, but to learn the magic, her lips moving but no sound escaping as she was effectively thrown out of his presence. As he called her a fool. Affirming that Niles had accepted him, how could she ever have forgotten..That dorian was her keeper, and not him. As every word he said shoved another pin down into her heart, confirming what she had already told herself a million times since forever.
her lips moved soundlessly again. father had been right. stupid, childish girl. one day, they would tire of her nonsense.
Dorian wouldn't find any resistance as he lifted her, struggling to find her feet but even as her twin positioned himself between her and drystan, she reached a wet and trembling hand to touch his sleeve.
"...i have...to go to...the pool" she murmured, voice hollow and haunted, turning to stumble for the door, struggling it open a crack and expelling herself without another word.
Drystan kept his hand over his mouth and could not reply because of what he was holding back. Tears and sorrow and hurt. He wanted to smash things and reshape the earth but he couldn't because it was just another life, in a long long list of them that was just gone. It happened to them all the time. Maybe not with someone so ...connected as Niles had been, but all the same. He would mourn, and then get on with living. But he did not wish to share the moment with anyone else. He couldnt say what he wanted to, to Dinah, and Dorian was going to get as close as he could to killing him eventually. He knew that much. he sucked in a breath through his nose as his eyes watered up and spilled over his cheek and hand covering his mouth.
Dorian realized when his brother's tears came spilling that he's misread pain as anger. Even having felt the empathic assault. He was going to say something else unkind since everything had already blown up too, but instead of that he managed, deflating his ire down and tucking his handkerchief into the pocket with the joint he'd scored, he'd murmur, with the heat of anger still tinting the words despite their content, "I am sorry for your loss." Then he'd retreat after Dinah toward the door.
"Wait, Di-- you need to eat something today. You didn't yesterday, did you?" He'd stick with her until she went to drown her sorrows in the pool, but after that he was going to find some people who like him: weren't mourning.